Page 57 of The Servants’ Matchmaking

Darcy looked out at the departing lamps swaying down the drive, the open hall behind him, Bingley standing just inside it with Jane's promise of tomorrow still warming his face.

"Eventually."

"Sarah will be pleased to hear it, sir."

"Sarah is to sleep. So, McKeever, are you."

"Yes, sir." Which was not, Darcy noted, remotely the same thing as agreeing to it.

Neither servant obeyed at once, of course. Netherfield still wanted clearing and counting and closing up for the night, and matchmaking, however successful, had never yet excused anyone from carrying candles. The two of them went back to their ordinary duties. Duties which, Darcy reflected, watching them go, had never once been ordinary at all.

He had once believed their meddling was the danger in all this.

Tonight, it had turned out to be the defence.

CHAPTER 13

Elizabeth

The blue shawl was back around Elizabeth's shoulders before midnight. A little worse for its adventures, but back.

Mrs. Nicholls stood near the retiring-room door, supervising the departure of guests with the particular genius of a good housekeeper: giving them privacy without ever quite leaving them alone.

"Miss Bingley took it from the press herself," Sarah said. "I saw the empty place after she asked me to carry Mrs. Long's cloak downstairs. Mr. McKeever saw Miss Bingley in the east corridor, and he knew my blue knots on sight."

Elizabeth examined the fringe. One knot had loosened in all the handling. She had to resist the urge to pull it tight right there, in front of everyone, as if that would undo the whole evening.

"You knew of her plan before I even arrived tonight," she said, "and you asked Mr. McKeever not to tell me."

"Yes, miss. I asked him to wait — unless Miss Bingley actually acted on it. Mr. Darcy agreed."

Mrs. Nicholls's eyes moved to Sarah. It was not a friendly look. A housemaid who inserted herself into a guest's private business could lose a great deal more than her employer's favour.

Elizabeth chose her words with care. "You protected my shawl. You warned me the moment it went missing. I am grateful for that." She paused. "You also decided, on my behalf, that I should walk into a ball without knowing a plan existed that used my name as its instrument. I am not grateful for that part."

Sarah swallowed. "I understand, miss. I thought — I thought staying quiet would keep the evening easy for you. Mr. Darcy made the same mistake, after the storm."

The comparison was bold. It was also exact, and Elizabeth felt it land.

"When he apologised for that," she said, "what did you think?"

"That he had learned better, miss."

"Then learn it with him." Elizabeth heard her own voice steady into something final. "There will be no more decisions made in my name. No messages invented, no garments moved, no meetings contrived. Books may still be recommended — within reason."

Sarah's chin came up. She did not weep. She did not plead, and Elizabeth found she respected her a good deal more for it than she would have for either.

"Yes, miss."

Mrs. Nicholls stepped forward. "I will speak with Sarah about her duties. She ought to have come to me at once."

"She ought," Elizabeth agreed. "She also prevented real harm to a guest of this house. I hope both facts will be remembered."

"They will be."

The housekeeper's answer carried an authority Elizabeth had no claim to at Netherfield. A tension she had not quite named eased at the sound of it. Sarah curtsied to them both and slipped away.

In the entrance hall, the Bennet family had assembled in its usual state of glorious disorder. Lydia had lost one glove. Kitty had found it and, for reasons known only to Kitty, refused to admit where. Mary wished to discuss the moral danger of masquerade. She had caught a garbled account of somebody wearing another woman's shawl and mistaken the whole business for a scandal out of a novel. Mrs. Bennet, meanwhile, had Jane cornered.